Jo lives in a small town in southern Japan. She lives with her two children and Japanese husband and is learning more everyday about the world of Japanese agriculture and culture.

Monday, January 14, 2013

Bartering

When we got our first chickens we had an agreement with the neighbours that the kids would take them eggs each week and they would give them 200 yen in return. We put the money into a piggy bank and the kids learnt that a small amount of money turned into a large amount of money if you slowly added to it each week.

New chickens meant new lessons to be learnt and this time we have an agreement with the neighbour that each week they will barter something that they have in excess for the eggs. Every Saturday morning the kids deliver the eggs and come home with something different. Rice crackers, apples, chocolate, bean rice, cookies, mandarins, jelly, popcorn, yoghurt and oreos have all featured in the past. I have a feeling that they are not always things they have an "excess" of, but the kids always look forward to finding out what their eggs will be swapped for each week.

Today Masaki came home with a couple of packets of banana oreo cookies and the largest strawberry I have every seen - and considering how big the standard strawberries here are, that is really saying something! I'm pretty sure it is a mutant, rather than a new breed of strawberry, but considering they grow square melons here it wouldn't actually surprise me if they were trying to grow flat strawberries the size of your hand in order to make them easier to package! And just for reference, the hand in the photo is my husband's.... he is 6 foot 3 (190cm) and has hands to match!